US looted thousands of Iraq’s cultural treasures: Iraqi archaeologist

An Iraqi archaeologist and architect says the United States has stolen thousands of ‘Iraq’s cultural treasures’ during the war in the Arab nation.

“Some 35,000 small and large items are missing from the National Museum of Iraq,” said Ihsan Fathi in an interview with RT earlier this week.

He went on to say that “huge amounts of documents representing historical importance that cannot be assigned a monetary value were taken by the US.”

“Large amounts of currency have been also misappropriated.... Everything that was stored in the Central and other banks was sent to the US without any documentation and now is kept in archives,” the Iraqi archaeologist stated.

In March, Assistant Director General for Culture at the United Nation Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Mounir Bouchenaki issued a statement saying that over 1,500 modern paintings and sculptures from Baghdad’s Museum of Fine Arts were stolen during the US-led invasion of Iraq.

The statement added that “This is a real cultural disaster.”

In 2003, the US and Britain invaded Iraq in blatant violation of international law and under the pretext of finding weapons of mass destruction. But no such weapons were ever found in Iraq.

More than one million Iraqis were killed as the result of the US-led invasion and subsequent occupation of the country, according to the California-based investigative organization, Project Censored.